


but i only got half a heart (to give to you)

by klixxy



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Crying Kageyama Tobio, Depression, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Hinata Shouyou is Sunshine, Hinata Shouyou is a Good Boyfriend, Hurt/Comfort, Kageyama Tobio Angst, Kageyama Tobio is Bad at Feelings, Kageyama Tobio-centric, M/M, Minor Character Death, References to Depression, References to Suicide, Sad Kageyama Tobio, for once, why is that not a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25745602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klixxy/pseuds/klixxy
Summary: The words tumble from his lips before he can catch them on his tongue, and Kageyama Tobio stands in the middle of his doorway, one shoe still half-on, his entire frame outlined with shadow as he asks into an empty house:“Are you proud of me?”.(Or five times Kageyama Tobio wonders if his grandfather is proud of him, and the one time that he receives an answer.)
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Kageyama Kazuyo & Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 19
Kudos: 326





	but i only got half a heart (to give to you)

**Author's Note:**

> How can you miss someone you've never met?  
> 'Cause I need you now but I don't know you yet  
> But can you find me soon because I'm in my head?  
> Yeah, I need you now but I don't know you yet
> 
> 'Cause lately it's been hard  
> They're sellin' me for parts  
> And I don't wanna be modern art  
> But I only got half a heart to give to you
> 
> \- IDK you yet by Alexander 23
> 
> ( based on this tumblr post: https://klixxy.tumblr.com/post/625321980284059648/kageyama-tobio-headcannons )

**i.**

_Are you proud of me?_

_Would you be proud of me?_

The thought, the question, pops into his head for the first time when he gets home some day just past the weight of the suit on his shoulders, the scent of the incense, the portrait of his grandfather staring back at him amongst rows and rows of pure white lilies; some day just before the days when loneliness will claw at his throat and his chest and his eyes, some day just before the emptiness carves him hollow.

The house is dark and silent, and as he shuts the door behind him, a meaningless _‘tadaima’_ slipping from his lips, easy and familiar and heavy as steel, he meets eyes with the photograph of his grandfather across the hall, lit gold from the light of the sunset, tumbling in from the window, the sticks of incense on the altar now nothing more than ash.

He pauses.

The rays of the dying sunlight light up the particles of dust into tiny little stars, floating and drifting at the other end of the hall. Shadows cover up his end, but the sun shimmers everything with honey on the other side. His grandfather’s eyes seem to sparkle in the photo, and he can’t help but remember that day, what feels like so long ago, standing at the side of the road, staring up at the shadowy form of his grandfather- eyes gleaming, white hair outlined with gold, a smile filled with something that makes Kageyama’s heart swell, a smile pulling at his lips as Kazuyo tells him: _someday someone stronger will appear._

The letters swim their way up in his mind before arranging themselves into perfect little ugly words that stick in his head like gum; sticking and sticking and never letting go.

The words tumble from his lips before he can catch them on his tongue, and Kageyama Tobio stands in the middle of his doorway, one shoe still half-on, his entire frame outlined with shadow as he asks into an empty house:

“Are you proud of me?”

The photo stares back at him, silent and unmoving.

There is no answer.

**ii.**

He’s curled up in the corner of his room when the thought pulses loudly in the back of his mind where it’s been stuck and stuck and aching, sinking into his mind again; the ever-present question that haunts him- a nightmare in the waking day, a question that breaks him slowly that will never be answered.

The lights are off, and Kageyama Tobio presses himself against the walls of his room so hard that he thinks that the pristine concrete might break beneath the pressure of all of the weight that storms in his chest, all the hollowness that brews in his mind like the scent of freshly ground coffee in the bottom of a mug- worthless and used and distorted. Soon to be thrown in the bottom of a trash can. He presses and presses into the wall, his limbs curling inward until he hopes that he could maybe, just _maybe_ cease to exist.

He curls inwards, presses against the wall, and tries not to break.

Some part of him wishes that he had never been born at all.

The house is too big and too small and his skin wails. He is simultaneously too full of the emotions that crash in his chest and also too devoid of them. There is too much there, crying in his heart, but there is also _nothing_. He is numb and he feels fake and he is _fine_ because he doesn’t know what else he can be, because he doesn’t know what he’ll do with the clouds that brew inside of him if he isn’t.

_He’s sinking._

_He turns around, the audience a dull ringing in his ear, the ball a vague pressure in his fingers, on his dreary heart as it beats and pounds against his ribs, against his skull._

_He turns around, and there’s no one there._

_The ball falls and it falls and it falls, and Kageyama must be sick, must have something wrong with him, because his skin stretches and his chest heaves and he finds that he just can’t breathe._

_He’s drowning._

A photo peeks out from the pocket of his shorts, where his clothes have haphazardly been thrown to the ground, nothing more than a shadowy outline in the darkness.

Kageyama still can’t breathe.

He feels as if he hasn’t taken a full breath since that day when he’d turned around and the ball had fallen and he’d sat on the bench and his hands had been shaking and there had been _no one there._

No one at home and no one sitting next to him for breakfast, no one huffing behind him as he runs, no one who listens, no one who stays around long enough to see the dull ache that comes and goes and drifts in his eyes, in his heart, in the empty cavern of his chest. It aches and it aches and it _aches_ and he _knows_ that there’s nothing really there, nothing that’s really pushing against his ribs and his lungs and leaving him cold in a way that burns, but sometimes all he can do is curl up in the corner and try to breathe.

To let his body and his mind and his soul wail.

To let his mind wander until he wishes that it would just run away with the wind, leaving him a thoughtless, useless corpse.

There’s no one.

The picture is just barely clear in the darkness. Miwa’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, her hair pulled up into a careful ponytail, her eyes glimmering with some unknown thing that has been forgotten to him with the pull of time, her lips quirked into a beaming laugh from something that Kazuyo is saying. Kazuyo’s mouth opened wide in the middle of some joke, his face open and wrinkled with the age of too many years, his eyes wide and full of laughter. His hair is messy and a streak of black sits dully amidst the gray. His arms are wide open, gesturing something that Kageyama will never know.

There is Miwa and there is Kazuyo.

And then there is him: His face young and relaxed, his hands tugging at Kazuyo’s and Miwa’s, His hair hiding a bit of his expression. But he is relaxed. He may not be smiling as wide as Miwa, but Kageyama has never been much of a smiler. His lips twitch and curl up into the tiniest hints of a smile, his dark eyes peering up at the two pinpoints of his world with curiosity and something that Kageyama’s empty heart can define as _love._

There is Miwa and there is Kazuyo.

And then there is him.

Kageyama curls into the wall. 

Downstairs, the incense burns bright and wild and smokey on Kazuyo’s altar. Hundreds of miles away, Miwa sits in Tokyo and stares down at the same picture, lying on her hairdresser.

She doesn’t cry.

Kageyama feels like crying.

He doesn’t cry either.

_Are you proud of me?_

The clock ticks on the wall, too loud and too quiet.

Kageyama feels so small. He thinks that he may be squished flat. He feels like the quiet lap of the sea against the beach, lonesome and mournful. He feels like the whispering turns of the moon as it rotates alone in the sky filled with stars cold as lightning, rotates above the tendrils of life that grow beneath. He feels like the crackle of a forgotten campfire, the scent of old parchment. He feels like neverending darkness that stretches on forever and ever and at some point steps into endless _nothing._

The photo looks back at him.

_(He turns around, and there’s nobody there.)_

There’s Miwa and there’s Kazuyo.

And then there’s…

There’s him.

**iii.**

They beat Shiratorizawa. 

Hinata screams and the senpais shriek and Suga’s eyes pour out big fat tears as he pulls Kageyama into a hug. Even coach Ukai is wiping burning tears from his eyes. The crowd roars, loud and overwhelming and incredible in his ears, but Kageyama does not feel anything.

They beat Shiratorizawa.

They _beat Shiratorizawa._

Across the net, Ushijima stares down at his hands. The black-haired spiker who had yelled something about being the next ace stares down at the floor, his face scrunching up in pain, in regret, in the crushing feeling of _defeat_. Even that red-haired blocker looks serious and quiet in the face of loss.

Kageyama knows.

He remembers-

_(He turns around and there’s-)_

He _knows._

But he also remembers a suit around his shoulders, pinching his thighs. He remembers the ache in his legs as he stands and he stands and the dull throbbing in his head as people speak and speak as if that will do something to help. As if that could _bring-_

He remembers Miwa pressed up against his arm, trying to hide the tears that drip without thought from her eyes, the hot wetness soaking through the black and the black and the black of his suit, of his skin, of the casket as it lowers into the ground. He remembers the picture and the shimmering white flowers, stark against the black and the black and the _black_ , remembers the candles and the incense and the indescribable _feeling_ that had seared at his heart until there was nothing left anymore. 

The terrible feeling of not feeling real.

Not feeling human.

Suga is still screaming in his ears. Hinata screeches something a few feet away, his voice shaking with joy and excitement. The black-haired spiker starts to cry across the long and uncrossable space of the net.

One side is crushed with the high of victory and the other is crushed by the rancid taste of bitter _loss._

Kageyama knows.

But he also knows that that loss is nothing. It’s nothing.

It doesn’t break and it doesn’t ache until it throbs, and it doesn’t leave you feeling empty for weeks and months and years. It doesn’t hollow and it doesn’t numb and it doesn’t make you feel like _maybe you want to-_

_(He turns around and-)_

-die.

They beat Shiratorizawa. 

They scream and they cry and they shovel their faces with food, with the overflowing adrenaline and joy that jolts through their veins like lightning.

Kageyama comes home late to an empty house.

He beat Shiratorizawa.

His grandfather’s portrait stares back at him, eerie in the darkness.

_Are you proud of me?_

**iv.**

Kageyama leans against the wall of the gym, watching the sun set, his high school graduation outfit stiff against his shoulders. 

The sky bleeds red and yellow and orange. It sinks and it melds and it melts with the touch of the blazing sun as it straggles below the horizon. Cherry blossoms are starting bloom on the trees that line the school, the pink turned to a deep red in the gaze of the sun. A slight chill pulls at his suit, and Kageyama lets out a shaky breath that turns into a puff of fog in the early March air.

The last time he had had a graduation, he had walked out of a school that had meant nothing but empty glares and broken friendships and a loneliness that hummed in the air and shuddered in his chest.

“Hey, Kageyama.” A familiar voice breaks him out of his musings, and he turns his head slightly to meet a faceful of bleeding orange hair and gleaming brown eyes. The sun shades Hinata in gold and yellow and red and orange. He looks like a light. He looks like something that Kageyama doesn’t think he can let go of.

The shorter boy is outfitted the same, the black stretching over strong muscles and a burning passion that Kageyama knows roars in his gut. Hinata walks over and leans against the wall next to him, his usually bubbly aura subdued into something a little quieter and a little more acknowledging of the monster that hides behind childish smiles and an energetic demeanor.

“Figures I’d find you back here.” He snorts a little, his hair a blazing fire in the sunrise, his eyes big and searching and filled with something Kageyama feels he can’t handle.

Hinata is small but big in ways that Kageyama will never be, naive but a striking beast in a certain light.

He is weak, but he is strong.

He is strong like Kageyama will never be.

Overwhelming.

Kageyama hums, closing his eyes before he can let the pulsating ache in his chest get any larger. The sun’s rays dance and sink into his skin. 

They stand there, for a while, time passing in a manner unknown, watching the sun let itself fall away into oblivion. A comfortable silence rings between them; three years of hard work and joking and a friendship that Kageyama sometimes thinks that he doesn’t deserve. 

Three years.

It feels like an eternity.

Not enough.

“I’m going to Brazil.” Hinata says suddenly, his voice quiet but so, so sure. His eyes blaze and the monster inside of him rears its head. Kageyama looks down at him, meets his eyes, sees the hunger and the determination and the sheer power writhing inside, and the moment drags on and on and on, as if it will never end.

Time passes.

The sun sinks.

“Good luck.” Kageyama says finally, managing to find the words from beneath all the emotions that crash around in the pit of his stomach. The sun sinks, the sky breathes, and Hinata stares back at him with serious eyes. Kageyama thinks that this sea inside of him will swallow him up, as if these breaking emotions that slosh inside of him will overtake him and leave him broken again.

Hinata.

It’s always Hinata.

“I’ll be back.” The third pinpoint of his life says, a spinning wheel of color and memory and emotions that Kageyama cannot make a sense of, his hair burning and his heart blazing and his eyes narrowed in a determination that can only mean _truth_. He holds his fist out to Kageyama, his lips quirking as if in secret, his skin and his face and his hair and his eyes made of beautiful, rearing _fire_. Flames that roar and seep and devour. Embers that flicker and gleam and give out warmth.

_I’ll be back._

Kageyama turns the words around in his head. Turns them over and over and over. Gently secures in the back of his mind for when things get too hard and his lungs find it a little too hard to breathe.

_I’ll be back._

He reaches out, and bumps his fist.

Hinata leaves, the line of his back highlighted gold in the sunset, his shoulders broad and pulled wide. His steps are confident and his strides are long. His hair shifts like fire.

He doesn’t look back.

Kageyama stands against this gymnasium that has changed everything, against these memories that seep into the emptiness of his heart and give him the feeble strength to push on.

He stands and he watches until that back becomes a dot, until it becomes a shadow, until it’s gone.

He stands and he thinks, and two photos weigh heavy in his pocket.

In one, the boy made of fire smiles and wraps his arms around him, in the background, a volleyball net standing proud. He is beaming, full of life and light and a joy that Kageyama can never understand. Kageyama stands next to him, his mouth quirked up in a rare smile, his eyes looking away from the camera and instead at the sunlight that shimmers in orange hair and a heart bigger than anything. There is something fond and tender in his gaze.

In another, the last pieces of his family, of his heart, smile and laugh and some part of Kageyama can’t help but _yearn_. Can’t help but look back.

Kazuyo and Miwa wait in the past of his memories, wait in the relentless pull of a time long gone. Of the emptiness of his house and the silence of his room.

But Hinata Shouyou waits in the future.

_I’ll be back._

_Are you proud of me?_

**v.**

He leaps towards the ground, the wooden tiles of the court screeching at his skin as he dives. The world seems to have gone silent and mute; time and destiny and the whole world watching with baited breath as Kageyama Tobio races for the ball that will decide everything.

It thuds against the ground.

A familiar, familiar sound.

There is a drawn-out moment of silence, but it is not empty. It is not meaningless. It hums and vibrates with an energy that bursts from the seams, that pulses in the air like a miniature heart. It shakes and trembles with something that fills and fills and fills and Kageyama’s little hollow chest almost feels-

Full.

_I’ll be back._

Across the net, Hinata Shouyou raises his fist into the air, and he screams. He screams and screams and it roars in Kageyama’s head, the audience just a background, his teammates and his opponents reduced to mere nothing. He stares at orange hair and a monster in human skin and a light that almost blinds him, a light that reaches out with an open palm and gives him a _way out_. A light that pours and pours, and it grips at the numbness with gentle fingers, with harsh fists, and allows Kageyama to _breathe._

Hinata is wildfire, growing and growing and burning everything else in its path- racing determinedly towards a single goal, a monster of flames and light that draws people closer and closer and _burns_ and yet only gives warmth.

He is big and strong and so much more than what his skin holds. He is bone and muscle but he is _heart_ and _soul_ and a storm of _passion_. He is overwhelming but when he looks back with those eyes made of hunger, those eyes colored with the sun and the stars and the moon, Kageyama only feels his heart beat back to life, can only feel like maybe this is _enough._

Like maybe-

_Are you proud of me?_

Maybe he doesn’t want to-

_(He looks back, and-)_

They line up at the net.

Shake hands.

Hinata looks up at him, and there is danger and monster and _home_ in his eyes, in the sharp curve of his smile. His eyes dance, his hair swerves with orange and red and embers. He gleams with victory, with a blazing need for _more_ , for a need to feel _alive._

“I’m back,” Hinata says, his voice quiet and deepened with something that sings and growls at the moon, at the high reach of the stars; something that flies in the night sky and actually manages to fight its way higher and higher and higher than anyone has ever been. “I’m here.”

Something in Kageyama expands and expands until it bursts.

His hands tremble. The emptiness that hums inside him quivers. 

His heart _roars._

It’s been seven years. 

He takes a breath.

Seven long years.

A monster inside of him snarls.

“I’ll beat you next time.” He says, voice low and breathy and raging with something that shakes with a freezing _need_. He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, but this time it’s because he _feels._

_I’ll beat you next time._

Hinata laughs.

Kageyama thinks that maybe, 

_Maybe._

Maybe this is okay.

**+i.**

Kageyama wakes up in bed, and the sunlight that pours in through the window is too bright. Too bright to look at, too bright to handle. Too bright for the heaviness that lingers in his limbs and the pit of his stomach and the rocking beats of his heart. The sheets are too heavy. They are made of iron and press him down into the mattress until he cannot move. His mind swims in sand- he cannot think, cannot hope, cannot bear to drag himself upright, drag himself _back._

His head swims and his chest aches again; that dull, pulsating, ugly thing that rears its head every now and then whenever Kageyama thinks that he might be okay again, might be able to live again. Someone carves and carves and carves him hollow- a puppet, a shell, something used and lived-in and spit out by the relentless push and pull of the sea, of the tides. 

He takes a breath, but it doesn’t feel like anything.

He takes a breath, but there is no air in his lungs.

He is numb.

Empty.

The door opens, but Kageyama barely hears it. It creaks, a distant, distorted sound that tickles the back of his mind as he slowly drowns in the constant throb of the storm that greys and greys and greys until there’s nothing left. Until he’s pushed back and back and back and he’s fifteen again, standing at some funeral hall, staring down a lifeless portrait, until he’s sixteen again, and sitting at the edge of the roof looking _down_ , until he’s seventeen again, and only just learning how to breathe.

Until he’s young and breaking and coming home to a house that doesn’t feel like _home_ anymore, doesn’t feel like _anything_ anymore because it _isn’t._

It’s nothing.

“Tobio?” A quiet voice drifts over from what feels like a dream; a reality not his own, if you will. Kageyama is lost and wandering and his body is not his own. He cannot move, he cannot think, he cannot bring himself to be human. Not right now.

Not today.

Something sits down next to him, warm hands of ember trailing over his skin. His blurry eyes blink and stutter and trail over smears of orange and brown. Familiar, familiar, in a way that pushes at his heart, in a way that pulls him back from the memories that crash against his being and into the present.

The bed creaks and the silence drags on.

On and on and on and _on._

Kageyama parts his lips to take a breath, but he cannot bear to speak, cannot dig up the words from where they churn inside of him faster and faster until he is pulled into its deadly embrace. He cannot speak and he cannot live and he cannot breathe. The fingers made of sun drifts through his hair, parting his locks with a rough tenderness that lingers warmth against his skin. A chest hums next to him, and the vibrations echo through his own chest, sparking and sparking until he doesn’t feel quite as cold anymore. 

Something clogs in his chest like a broken drain, so he draws in a breath that isn’t really a breath, and sighs, trying to let the rain that simmers in his mind cascade out with his lungs.

He lies there like that, for a while.

The hand keeps carding through his hair, gentle but not so gentle that he cannot feel it through the numbness that overcomes him. The chest keeps humming and humming until Kageyama doesn’t feel quite so dead anymore, doesn’t feel like he isn’t real, isn’t in existence.

He doesn’t know how much time passes, but Kageyama sinks and drowns and lets himself be weak- lets himself stand still and gather up the meager strength to carry on.

On good days, he laughs. He smiles and his heart feels so full that it may explode into a thousand supernovas. His chest feels so bright that he thinks that he may glow, that he may shine with the light that will push him forwards so far that he will come to a place where everything is perfect again. His lungs breathe and his eyes blink and his veins swell with _life_ , with all the things that he won’t ever be able put down into words.

On good days, he feels like stardust and moonlight and morning dew. He feels like drifting dust and howling wind and blooming flowers. He feels like honking cars and a thousand city lights. He feels so human, so, very human, that at some point he can bear to become a _monster_ ; someone that dares and dares and dares and smiles with something poignant and hungry and _alive._

On good days, he thinks that everything will be alright again.

He’s been having a lot of good days recently.

A week ago, he played and he played and he played until adrenaline sang in his blood with the fury of a million men with raised swords. He’d looked back and he’d met the eye of another monster of flame and he’d smiled so wide that he thinks that he may have been able to devour it all.

The day before yesterday, he’d laughed so hard that he’d thought that his chest might cave in with the force of it.

Yesterday, he’d sat in the living room with the only light of his life, and he’d let himself melt. Let himself love.

He’s had a lot of good days recently.

Today is not a good day.

Today is not even a bad day.

Today is a day when Kageyama loses himself, when Kageyama sinks so far that he can’t even remember why he has to climb back up. It’s a day when the ache becomes so unbearable that Kageyama cannot function, a day when the age-old thoughts from years and years ago wail and haunt and rage in his mind. It’s a day when sometimes he curls up in the corner and wonders if-

_(He looks back-)_

“Tobio.” The voice says, soft and urging and determined.

Kageyama blinks. 

Again. 

Again. 

Again.

Breathes, until his mind stops fogging up.

Breathes, until he stops spiraling.

“Tobio.” The voice says, stronger now. Burning hands reach down to cradle his cheeks. Kageyama feels so, so _tired_. “Look at me.” The voice commands.

Kageyama doesn’t want to break.

He feels it, inside of him; something shattering and shattering, but Kageyama _doesn’t want to break._

He blinks.

Blinks until he can bear to face the world.

His eyes come into focus to see orange hair and brown eyes and the man who holds his heart in his hands. He sees fire and flames and passion. Sees worry and care and _love_. He sees, and the things he sees in those achingly familiar eyes almost breaks him.

He loves him.

Sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough.

Thumbs made of flame rub careful circles into his cheeks.

A part of Kageyama doesn’t want to go on like this.

Wants to give up.

“Sit up, Tobio.” He says, soft, but full of command. Kageyama sinks and his heart wails and he is so, empty, so, so, _tired_. His limbs weigh a million pounds and his head bloats until it is too big for him to lift off of the ground. “Sit up Tobio.” He says again, stronger.

The hands reach down, gripping his arms and his back gently, gripping his sorrow and his grief with warm fingers, slowly forcing him _up._

Kageyama thinks.

He doesn’t want to break.

He sits up.

He wobbles, for a moment, but the fingers pull him gently down until he is resting upon flesh and bone and a man made of fire and sun. 

Hinata Shouyou smells like earth. He smells like growing vines and tall trees with unshakeable roots. He smells like fresh wind and crackling flames. He smells like baked bread and burning coal and the scent of their shared lavender eco-friendly shampoo. 

He smells like home.

Kageyama breathes and breathes and breathes into this man that has become something irreplaceable to him, and for a long, trembling moment, he wants to cry.

Sunlight shades both of them gold. 

Kageyama is numb and lost, but Hinata is warm and stable. Kageyama wanders, lost and lost and lost in memories that stab dully at his mind, but Hinata calls, from the middle of the storm, and Kageyama goes. His shaking feet wander and wander until he cascades into arms that shelter him from everything that pulls at him and pulls at him until it _overwhelms._

_I’ll be back._

After all these years, Kageyama wakes up feeling nothing, but someone sits next to him and _holds him._

 _I’m here_ , Kageyama hears in the steady beat of Hinata’s heart, in the pulsing warmth of his limbs, in the arms that wrap around him and anchors him to reality. _I'm here._

Kageyama takes a breath.

“My parents were never around.” He starts, voice as quiet as a shaking star. His heart trembles and stutters, but Hinata’s hands squeeze his shoulders, and Kageyama somehow dredges up the strength to carry on. “My grandfather was the one who raised me and my sister.” 

A picture weighs heavy in a drawer next to his bed.

There’s Miwa and there’s Kazuyo.

And then there’s him.

A long moment passes. Kageyama almost breaks, but two arms and a torso and a man that he can no longer live without holds him and holds him tight enough to keep him from cracking too far. His hands tremble, his lungs wheeze like the fragile flutter of a butterfly’s wings, and the words spill out of him like the pull of a current, dripping from his lips without emotion.

“He died today twelve years ago.” He speaks, but it’s just another beat of his mourning heart, just another pretty little sentence that hangs in the back of his mind to haunt him when things get too beautiful. Something inside of him aches and aches and _aches._

Hinata doesn’t say anything.

He just breathes out, warm and ticklish against Kageyama’s forehead, and keeps one hand steady against Kageyama’s back while the other goes back to twisting his hair and rubbing small circles into his skin. Hinata’s heart beats somewhere beneath hardened muscle and protective bone. Kageyama can hear it, thudding against his head as Kageyama leans, curling into a strong chest and working lungs until he stops feeling as if he will break at any moment.

Sunlight pours in from the window.

Kageyama breathes.

“I wonder every day,” He says, his voice so quiet that he wonders if even Hinata can hear it. The words that stick and stick and stick in his mind pulse again, loud and uneven and painful. “If he’s proud of me.” Kageyama’s hands sit like a stone in his lap. The room is quiet and empty but Hinata Shouyou’s hands don’t stop holding him, so Kageyama Tobio does not shatter.

He buries his head even deeper into Hinata’s shirt until all he can feel and all he can hear is him. He thinks and thinks and thinks about Kazuyo, about Miwa, about all those times he’d woken up in the morning, gotten home to an empty house, won a match against an opponent; all those times his heart had cried and his skin had itched and all he could have thought about was that goddamn sentence.

_Are you proud of me?_

The question hangs in the air, heavy and useless and unanswerable.

Hinata’s hands, burning into his skin, trail over him until they reach his cheeks again. For a moment, he just holds Kageyama’s cheeks and his face and his heart in his hands. Carefully he lifts Kageyama’s head out of his chest, out, out, out, until Kageyama is facing the world again, his head held high, his eyes looking straight into blazing brown ones.

Today is some day years and years after he graduates Karasuno and goes pro, some day after he starts feeling alive again and some day before the days when he will be able to love without breaking. 

Years ago, Hinata stood on the court, across the net from him, beamed at him, and told him _I’m back_. Years before that, he’d stood against their familiar, familiar gym, their graduation outfits heavy on their shoulders and told him _I’m going to Brazil_ , walking away without looking back. And some day years before that, he’d stood on a staircase, young and short and wearing the first volleyball uniform in his life, outlined in gold and sunset and something that might have been fate, shouting through his tears: _I’ll defeat you._

But today...

Today, Hinata sits next to him in his bed after Kageyama confesses the shadows that drape over his shoulders and his wrists, confesses his constant ache of _Are you proud of-_

Today, Hinata sits next to him in his bed and tells him _I don’t know that, and there’s nothing I can do to prove to you that he is, but let me tell you here and now, Tobio, that I am so proud of you that my heart could burst_ , and Kageyama breaks, but he breaks in a way that won’t leave him empty, won’t leave him shattered. He crumbles, but Hinata’s hands hold his head high as he sobs and cries and wails all the things that he has held inside of him for years and years and _years._

He cries and he cries, but Hinata holds him as if he is precious, as if he is something to be treasured, as if he is genuinely proud. 

As if he _loves-_

Kageyama cries and breaks, but Hinata is there to help him glue himself back together.

He is there to fill a void that Kageyama has been drowning in for far too long.

Kageyama cries.

He cries and cries and cries.

And Hinata is there to hold him.

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

_“Are you proud of me?”_

_“More than you could ever imagine.”_

**Author's Note:**

> how was it? i feel like it's pretty bad,,, i just wrote it on a whim lol.
> 
> kageyama is pretty ooc in this one,,, idk this is just one personal headcannon of mine.
> 
> please kudos and leave a comment! :DDD


End file.
